We have entered the final chapter of this three part lapel series. Here we will further discuss immobilizing your opponent with the lapel, increasing your likelihood of success with stealthy grip sets, and some more advanced methods of weaving the lapel into the web that we call your game. With the basics creating our fundamental understanding of lapel usage, these thoughts should be easier now to understand and promote a greater level of success when you give the a try!
Immobilization
One of the biggest concepts of jiu jitsu as a whole is to keep your opponent controlled by isolating the body in such a way that their movement becomes impaired. This helps cut down on being attacked and the person is forced into defensive/survival mode. When we can free up our own limbs by substituting the lapel(s) in its place, we increase our success rate of attack.
Think of the sweep we saw in Creating a Web (Part 2). In the scenario we trapped the arm of the opponent, which prevented the posting opportunity and then combined that modified control with the principles of a basic sweep. Since the lapel can isolate a part of the body and additionally add pressure/discomfort to the controlled portion, we can see how our opponent may start to mentally fail. We can use the lapel in ways to prevent movement, maintain control of a position, isolate a portion of the body, or even a a tether/pulley to maintain space and influence our opponent's movement.
Stealth
The idea of trickery in jiu jitsu has always been an exciting part of the game for me. Thinking about how someone normally reacts or even more specific to your opponent's characteristics, we can start to set up pre-meditated traps to snare our opponent in. Using grips multi-gripping tactics can help fool your opponent into thinking they are defending one move, where in reality they are greatly increasing your real move's success rate.
Advanced Weaving Strategies
When we weave the lapel around our opponent, we are in essence: creating a web. The interesting part behind it though is that if we can break the posture of our opponent, by applying all these principles across the series we can maximize the concept of taking the spine our of alignment. With the spine misaligned, the maximum output of power is drastically reduced, which creates an opportunity to attack your opponent. If they try to compensate their posture with posting, they have put themselves in harm's way. In essence, they are doing the dirty work for you!
Take a look at three examples within the video below to get a better understanding of these three elements of lapel control!
